Publications

The Avaliação Longitudinal da Desistência Escolar (ALDE, Longitudinal Assessment of School Dropout) is the first nationally representative mixed-method longitudinal survey in Mozambique. Since 2018, the ALDE survey has annually collected longitudinal, nationally representative data from around 5,400 primary school students (from grades 1 to 7) in 60 schools across all eleven provinces in the country.

This report presents the results of the quantitative data collected in 2019 and focuses on the determinants of school dropouts in the country. When children leave school prematurely, not only is their learning interrupted, but the trajectories of their future opportunities and lives are forever altered. This report explores the multidimensional process of school dropouts, investigating how individual, household, community and school-level factors interact to lead children in Mozambique to dropout of education. Through this analysis, the report provides important and actionable recommendations to improve education policy in Mozambique towards its journey to achieve learning for every child.

Best of UNICEF Research showcases the most rigorous, innovative and impactful research produced by UNICEF offices worldwide. While evidence highlights emerging issues, it also informs decisions and provides policy and programme recommendations for governments and partners, to improve children's lives.

This year, Best of UNICEF Research celebrates its 10th edition. It features 12 research projects that the selection panel concurred deserved special recognition for delivering results for children in 2022. How? By informing decision-making, shaping policy, raising public awareness, driving social change, and giving children and young people a voice on the issues that affect them most through participatory research.

These endeavours showcase both the power of innovation in the face of emergency and crisis, and the virtues of agility, endurance and scalability. They also offer solutions and ways to learn from each other. Each piece of research offers a set of adaptable tools: validated methodologies; templates for emergency response plans; methods of monitoring and measuring progress; and examples of successful collaboration between stakeholders. 

 

This research brief is one of a series of six briefs, which provide an overview of available evidence shown in the Campbell-UNICEF Mega-Map of the effectiveness of interventions to improve child well-being in low- and middle-income countries. Five of these briefs summarize evidence as mapped against the five goal areas of UNICEF’s 2018–2021 Strategic Plan. A sixth special brief was added to focus specifically on COVID-19 and other epidemics and major crises. It is anticipated that the briefs will also be useful for others working in the child well-being space.

Evidence and objective assessment are needed more than ever to help enhance the rights and well-being of the world’s children. Researching the changing world around us and evaluating progress are two sides of the same coin, both critical to reimagining a better future for children. In recognition of this, UNICEF celebrates and showcases innovative and influential research and evaluations from our offices around the world every year. For 2020, Innocenti and the Evaluation Office joined forces to find the most rigorous UNICEF studies with greatest influence on policies and programmes that benefit children.

This paper develops an econometric strategy to operationalize the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF’s) conceptual framework for nutrition, estimating the effects on child stunting that additional investments in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) intervention packages have across population groups (poor and non-poor) and residence (urban and rural). Moving away from estimating single intervention marginal returns, the empirical framework is tested in Tunisia; a country with notable but uneven progress in child nutrition. A successful reduction of stunting will involve mapping the distinctive most effective intervention packages by residence and socioeconomic status, moving away from universal policies.

In addition to recognizing high quality research, the Best of UNICEF Research process aims to share findings with UNICEF colleagues and with the wider community concerned with achieving child rights. This year the competition received 99 applications With global reach, the 12 projects in the final selection cover many of the ‘traditional’ areas of UNICEF work (health, nutrition, sanitation and education), while also highlighting issues that have more recently gained prominence within the global policy agenda, such as social transfers, violence against children and school bullying, and various forms of inequality or exclusion. This publication provides summaries of these research projects, including methodology and results.

There is a shortfall of up to $80 billion per year between what is spent and what should be spent to ensure universal access to basic social services such as primary health care, basic education and clean water. Drawing on case studies from over 30 developing countries, Basic Services for All? highlights the human cost of this shortfall in terms of lives lost, children out of school, the millions undernourished, and the billions without safe water and sanitation. The report concludes with a Ten Point Agenda for Action - urgently needed measures to close the $80 billion gap.

Il y a un déséquilibre de 80 milliards de dollars par an entre ce qui est dépensé et ce qui devrait l'être pour garantir l'accès universel aux services sociaux de base comme les soins de santé primaire, l'éducation de base et l'eau salubre. S'appuyant sur des enquêtes menées dans plus de 30 pays en développement, Des services de base pour tous? souligne le coût humain de ce déséquilibre en termes de vies perdues, d'enfants non scolarisés, de millions de personnes sous-alimentées, et de milliards d'autres sans eau salubre ni assainissement. Le rapport se termine sur un Programme d'action en dix points, à savoir les mesures à prendre d'urgence pour combler l'écart de 80 milliards de dollars.

Existe un déficit que alcanza los 80 mil millones de dólares por año entre lo que se gasta y lo que se debería gastar para asegurar el acceso universalizado a los servicios sociales básicos, como por ejemplo los cuidados primarios de salud, la educación básica y el suministro de agua potable. Basándose en los estudios prácticos realizados en más de 30 países en desarrollo, ¿Servicios básicos para todos? hace hincapié en el costo humano de este déficit desde el punto de vista del número de vidas perdidas, de los niños que no van a la escuela, de los millones de individuos desnutridos, y de los miles de millones de seres humanos que carecen de agua y saneamiento higiénicamente adecuados. El informe se cierra con un Plan de Acción que consta de diez puntos, diez medidas que es urgente tomar para subsanar este déficit de 80 mil millones de dólares.